1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for handling a communication failure in a processing apparatus that has a network communication function and is configured to perform information processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known a technique to acquire, when a failure has occurred in network communication equipment, packets flowing through a network communication path and investigate the cause of the failure. General investigation technique is to connect equipment dedicated for packet acquisition to a line concentrator (e.g., a hub) and acquire packets flowing through a LAN (local area network) by using the acquisition equipment.
With this technique, contents of packet data transmitted from and received by the network communication equipment under investigation are analyzed based on acquired packets, and a location where data not complying with specified requirements has been received or a location where a delay has occurred in responding to packet reception is identified. To confirm whether the identified location is the cause (source) of the failure, investigation is performed by, e.g., transmitting the same packet to the network communication equipment to see if the failure is reproduced or by analyzing a source code used in communication by the network communication equipment.
To ensure a storage region for the packet acquisition equipment or reduce the labor of the packet analysis for the investigation, there is a packet filtering function. With this function, only packets matching a particular condition are acquired, whereby the number of packets to be acquired can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to reduce a memory region for recording the acquired packets and reduce a hard disk region for long term storage.
It is also possible to reduce man-hour required for the analysis.
In most cases, filtering rules are specified by network protocol elements. For example, only a particular protocol, e.g., IP (Internet protocol) or ARP (address resolution protocol), is filtered so as to acquire packets only according to the particular protocol. More detailed filtering can be performed for every protocol. For example, for the IP protocol, detailed filtering can be made by setting conditions such as particular transmission destination address, particular transmission destination port number, particular transmission source address, and particular transmission source port number.
Recently, network communication equipment having a packet acquiring function has been in widespread use. With this function, packets can be acquired without using equipment specialized for packet acquisition. It is therefore possible to acquire packets even in a network to which a switching hub is connected. In addition, it has recently been possible to perform filtering specialized for the intended purpose or functionality of network communication equipment. Unlike the filtering specified by network protocol elements, the filtering specialized for the function of network communication equipment is able to further improve the efficiency of failure analysis.
For example, a network printer disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-362386 is capable of storing packet data in units of received print jobs and capable of performing failure analysis in units of print jobs. As a result, during printing of print jobs received via a network, only a print job where a failure has occurred can be extracted to analyze the failure, whereby the efficiency of analysis can be improved.
As a conventional packet filtering method, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-51588 proposes a filtering method where IP packets unnecessary for a network terminal are automatically recognized and discarded.
However, in order to input and set a packet filtering condition for execution of the conventional technique to an image forming apparatus, it takes much labor and time for key manipulation to input the filtering condition since keys provided on an operation unit of the image forming apparatus are extremely fewer in number than keys provided on, e.g., an operation unit of a personal computer.
More specifically, since the filtering condition to be input for, e.g., the IP protocol includes particular transmission destination address, particular transmission destination port number, particular transmission source address, particular transmission source port number, etc., it takes much time and labor to input the filtering condition via the operation unit of the image forming apparatus.
In a case where the filtering condition is manually input to the image forming apparatus, there is a fear that the filtering condition is erroneously set by an input mistake, resulting in inability to acquire intended packets.
In a case where the filtering condition is set to the image forming apparatus by uploading a file in which the filtering condition is written from, e.g., a personal computer to the image forming apparatus, preparatory work such as creating the upload file, registering the upload file into the personal computer, and connecting the personal computer to a network must be made, resulting in much expense in time and effort.